Tsunami of Darkness (2)

The Egg-Shaped Apostle has reached the Tower's summit and rests in the palm of the hand its collapse shaped, listening to the wails far beneath it. It speaks to the Demon Child cradled inside it, now stripped of its dark essence and left as an ordinary infant. On the ground, the refugees are penned in, spirits on three sides and the wall at their backs, while Azan and the Holy Iron Chain Knights guard them from the possessed. The clear-headed among them slip through a gate into Albion, where the blood spirits in the Tower make the town far less deadly than the field outside. Azan judges it wise to bring his knights inside too, but as they move the gate swings shut; those already within have sealed the town, stranding hundreds of their own and the knights outside against the spirits.

Nina, propped up in the wrecked stall she fell into, nurses an ankle she fears is broken and hobbles out on a broom handle. The makeshift crutch gives way, dropping her in pain, and she cries out only to hear a crowd thundering toward her, the barricaded refugees stampeding without slowing. A breath before she is trampled, Luca, who slipped into Albion among them, throws herself over the girl until the crush passes. Nina weeps and clings to her old mentor, but Luca cuts the reunion short. She sees a great door in the outer wall buckling inward under something huge and, with Nina unable to run, settles her into a nearby barrel. When Nina balks at leaving her, Luca raps her on the head with the lid to steady her, tells her that her very timidity makes her a survivor, winks, then seals the barrel and hammers the lid fast with a stone. As she finishes, the spirits begin seeping out of the Tower toward her.

Only Guts, Casca, Isidro, Puck, Jerome, Serpico, and Farnese remain alive atop the wall, hemmed by spirits flooding Albion on both sides. Serpico points out a curious sight below: a few stranded refugees pray over Mozgus's burning corpse, ringed by spirits that will not come near, for the creatures shun fire. Guts gathers dry planks scattered along the wall, sparks one alight by striking his metal arm with a rock, and has the others do the same. When Jerome proposes retreating into the Tower, Guts warns it teems with all but unkillable spirits, then notes that dawn is close and sunlight will drive them back. Even Farnese, no friend of the Black Swordsman, finds herself steadied by his words. Torches in hand, all but the deranged Casca and the diminutive Puck, they start their slow advance toward the looming spirit mass.

The refugees who reach Albion seal the gate, trapping Azan's knights and hundreds of others outside with the spirits. Luca shields Nina from a stampede, then hides the injured girl in a sealed barrel as the spirits close on her. Serpico observes that the creatures avoid Mozgus's flames, prompting Guts to arm the survivors with torches and lead them along the wall to hold out until the sunrise forces the spirits to withdraw.

The concluding half of Tsunami of Darkness filled twenty-two pages in Young Animal issue 22 on November 10, 2000. It sharpens the human cruelty running through the arc as the saved abandon their rescuers, and it frames Luca's quiet faith in the timid Nina while Guts turns the spirits' fear of fire into the group's only defense.